IRM Latest! The Hunslets Enter The Final Frontier - Delivery Update December 2025

[Blaine]

On 20/6/2026 at 8:16 AM, Jonathan Allen said:

Didn't know that Blaine - I only photographed the things.

Right to the end, the Hunslets had only one lamp iron - on the second man's side (left if looking at the locomotive, right if sitting in the cab). I last photographed a push-pull set south of Dundalk on 19 July 1982 101 leaving Drogheda | With arrival of the two 111 class loc… | Flickr but they probably worked south after that. The coming of 113 in August 1984 likely saw the end of push-pull working on the cross-border links, but if anybody knows different, I'll be glad to hear from you.

Last photographed top & tail push-pull on 17 December 1988 102 & 101 Lisburn | A poor shot on a bad day, but this is be… | Flickr but that only got to Newry. Again, I'll be glad to know of any later workings.

When it comes to lamp irons, the DTSOs are a different matter. I seldom photographed the a&s* end of a train (no imagination when it comes to photography), but this shot suggests there was a lamp iron on the left (looking at the unit) above the light and another just below the cab window. Those positions did not change during the service life of the DTSOs 101 Bangor | 101 "Eagle" propells the 15.00 Bangor - Portado… | Flickr as far as I can tell.

My last photograph of a pair of Hunslets on a Dublin was 24 June 1989: 103 & 102 leaving Lisburn | To have had one 101 working by J… | Flickr - a when 101 also worked the sprayer and there must have been several blue moons in the sky. No issue with the lamp irons as 102 & 103 would have run-round in Connolly.

If anybody can fill-in the gaps in my knowledge, it will be appreciated.

Hi Jonathan, huge fan of your photos, useful and inspiring

I helped out with the research for this model, and given I wasn't even 5 years old when they stopped regularly running on the Enterprise most of the info was gleaned from research both online and talking to people

Past 1984 they were not common on the Enterprise at all - they were not as reliable then, plus I'm not sure if non-CAWS fitted locos were allowed south of Malahide then (which was the furthest that CAWS reached on the Belfast line then, was there special permission needed, loco inspector in the cab etc). I'm sure lack of maintenance etc ended push-pull operation, given the 111's didnt use it 

Coach lamp irons - I know BR MK2's had two, one high, one low, IR ones were both lower down, as long as there was a lamp iron there it was sufficient, later the two rule came into place. 

Hunslets only had one lamp iron, be it for a tail lamp, the GNRI white square to mark the rear of the train or occasionally a tour headboard. It was well out of gauge too

The great irony of it all is that the Hunslets shared plenty of parts with the BR Class 20 and Portuguese CP 1400 locos, both of which are renowned for reliability and yet their NIR cousins didnt even last 15 years on the frontline

[Horsetan]

6 hours ago, Blaine said:

... the Hunslets shared plenty of parts with the BR Class 20 and Portuguese CP 1400 locos, both of which are renowned for reliability and yet their NIR cousins didnt even last 15 years on the frontline

I suspect that's partly to do with the peculiarities of motive power policy and needs in Northern Ireland, which is not like Britain or Portugal.

[west_clare_wanderer]

18 hours ago, Horsetan said:

I suspect that's partly to do with the peculiarities of motive power policy and needs in Northern Ireland, which is not like Britain or Portugal.

Interesting. If you don't mind, could you explain more please? 

[Blaine]

On 7/7/2026 at 10:43 PM, Horsetan said:

I suspect that's partly to do with the peculiarities of motive power policy and needs in Northern Ireland, which is not like Britain or Portugal.

or just poor maintenance... 

[Mayner]

On 8/7/2026 at 9:43 AM, Horsetan said:

I suspect that's partly to do with the peculiarities of motive power policy and needs in Northern Ireland, which is not like Britain or Portugal.

Basically General Motors (111 Class) locomotives replacing British built locos on the Enterprise during the early 80s, something that did not take place (on a large scale) on in Britain until the introduction of the Class 66 during the late 1990s. There was little serious work for the Hunslets on the NIR system once replaced on Enterprise duties by the 111 Class.

I suspect that the failure rate and maintenance costs per mile were higher for the Hunslets compared to a similar GM loco. New Zealand Railways (NZR) found that the maintenance cost per mile of their 1500hp English Electric DF Class between 1955-1960 were 4 times higher than their 1420 hp GM DA Class (G12 export model).  

NZR operated four different Classes on English Electric locos (one Class built in EE Australian Plant) all withdrawn by late 80s, higher failure rate and maintenance costs than GM & GE (USA) Classes.

Interestingly until recently English Electric (Australian built) locos were the mainstay of Tasmanian motive power and GM (second hand imports) considered inferior.

Edited Thursday at 11:04 by Mayner

[airfixfan]

15 minutes ago, Blaine said:

or just poor maintenance... 

York Road struggled to keep them ru ning

[Mol_PMB]

I suspect there weren't really enough of them, and the cash-strapped NIR was trying to squeeze too much out of them.

For a reliable service, you need at least two spare locos - one undergoing planned maintenance and another ready to go if there's a failure.

NIR almost had that with the original scheme of 2+8 in summer and 1+5 in winter, assuming that the planned maintenance was mostly in the winter. 

But when the extra coaches were bought to enable 2 sets to run at the same time, there sometimes wasn't even one spare. Not to mention the uselessness of the 1 class for sustained heavy work, so the 101s got borrowed for engineers' trains too.

The consequences were:

1. on the Enterprise a single loco was often overloaded on a long train and had to be thrashed
2. locos couldn't be spared for planned maintenance because they were all needed in traffic, so the maintenance wasn't done, or was rushed
3. they wore out quickly and became unreliable
4. when one suffered a major failure, the other two became even more overloaded

Both the BR 20s and the CP 1400s were large fleets, and were generally well maintained. They also benefitted from a larger pool of spare parts (as well as more spare locos).